Blog Posts and Lists

Thursday, October 11, 2012

At The Core

In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to Philadelphia—very excited
to attend the School Library Journal 2012 Leadership
Summit. I’m one of the authors speaking on the panel, “Nonfiction at the Fore
of the Common Core.”

Boy, am I looking forward to it: I love hanging out with
librarians (who, I have discovered over the years, have not only chosen their
field for the glamorous lifestyle and high pay; they also just plain love
books). I also love ‘talking shop’ with other authors.

On the panel, I’ll get to do both.

To get ready, I’ve started reading more about The Common
Core State Standards (which have now been formally adopted by 45 states and
three territories.) The CCSS ask teachers and librarians to use both fiction
and—happily—nonfiction to help their students build reading, writing, and
critical thinking skills.

Good stuff, right? But what if you are a busy teacher or
librarian? How do you implement CCSS in your daily life?

Luckily, there are a couple of terrific blogs to help you.

The Classroom Bookshelf posts a weekly entry on a recently
published book, including many nonfiction titles. Each entry includes a book
review, followed by a series of lesson plan ideas and links to additional
resources for expanding on the text.

Recently, the blog had a very helpful entry specifically on
the different types of nonfiction, an overview of how each type might be used
in the classroom or library, and then a list of resources for finding great
nonfiction titles.

From their resource list, I discovered another terrific blog
that also highlights nonfiction texts and offers instructional ideas: The Uncommon Corps. The blog is subtitled, “Champions of Nonfiction Literature for
Children and Young Adults,” and while there is no evidence of tights and capes
in their group photo, they look like superheroes to me.

8 comments:

Uncommon Core features Dr. Myra Zarnowski, a strong champion for nonfiction in the classroom and a member of iNK Think Tank's videoconferencing group Authors on Call. We are pioneering ways of collaborating with teachers and students to use nonfiction by planning ahead on different teaching strategies and by "unpacking" (Myra's term, not mine) the author's process.

I am sooo pleased as a long-time non-fiction junkie to see this re-emphasis on non-fiction. And your whole canon of books are - BOOM!- right there at the epicenter of teh perfect-Common-Core storm. That makes me happy too!

Yeah, I have to say I'm really thrilled that there will be more focus put on the craft of nonfiction -- and I mean "craft" literally: I have read so many nonfiction books by so many authors that are dynamite. Folks in the field truly are great writers (in addition to excelling at providing information) and it's very exciting to know that kids will really be studying those models.

I.N.K.: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

Here we will meet the writers whose words are presenting nonfiction in a whole new way. Discover books that show how nonfiction writers are some of the best storytellers around. Learn how these writers practice their craft: research techniques, fact gathering and detective work. Check out how they find unusual tidbits, make the facts interesting and write something kids will love to read. Explore how photos and illustrations are integrated with the text to explain an artist's vision of the world. Consider what subjects are flooding the market and what still needs a voice. Rethink nonfiction for kids.